Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Gabriel and the Hour Book/Google Books

Summary:Yesterday's Classics, 2005 - Fiction - 100 pagesRelates the story of the making of an "hour book" as a wedding gift from King Louis of France to Lady Anne of Brittany and the good fortune it brought to little Gabriel, Brother Stephen's color grinder. Inspired by the bunch of violets and cuckoo-buds Gabriel brings into the workroom, Brother Stephen conceives a new idea for an illuminated border. Instead of painting the border with scrolls and birds and flowers in the conventional way, he would decorate the book with borders of gold on which he would paint in realistic fashion the meadow wildflowers, and bees and butterflies, and all the little flying creatures. As Brother Stephen's color grinder, Gabriel makes the ink, grinds the gold, gathers the flowers, and prepares the colors for him. After the book is completed, Gabriel slips into the book a sheet on which he has penned a prayer to Lady Anne: "I, Gabriel Viaud, am Brother Stephen's colour-grinder; and I have made the ink for this book, and the glue, and caught the eels, and ground the gold and colours, and ruled the lines and gathered the flowers for the borders, and so I pray the Lord God will be kind and let my father out of prison in Count Pierre's castle, and tell Count Pierre to give us back our meadow and sheep, for we cannot pay the tax, and mother says we will starve." How his prayer is answered unfolds in the ensuing chapters. Evaleen Stein brings the medieval world to life for younger students through her stories set in the Middle Ages. A century ago when this book was first published, a reviewer in the Louisville Daily Courier wrote, "No works in juvenile fiction contain so many of the elements that stir the hearts of children and grown-ups as well as do the stories soadmirably told by this author."

Sources Of Free Books

All books are in public domain, unless indicated.

Google Book Search books are printable if switched to plain text, or page by page by right clicking on image of page(HTML mode only). *Switch to HTML(bottom of main Google Books Menu page) . **Click on the download button at link(upper right on sidebar) to download entire text in PDF.

*(10/10)This has been disabled. Hopefully the HTML button will come back. Books listed here are still linked in HTML. I have been able to change the end of the web address by hand from Text to HTML.

**(12/10)Google Books removed the PDF download button on the overview "About" book pages! To access a download, click on any page of the book to find the PDF download button in the upper right corner.

Internet Archives indexes several free book resources, has an excellent search engine, fully printable books, and an online flip-book reader with an audio reader. Readable online as plain text or as HTML(like a regular web page).

Rosetta Project groups vintage illustrated children's books by reading level, easy to read format, and has an audio reader. Not in public domain per their format. Read only, books downloadable for small fee.